I missed Cycle 19 also (too young) but of course heard a lot about it.

I was licensed for Cycle 20 and those since.

I do recall in Cycle 21 and also in Cycle 23, especially around mid to late November '79 and again in '01, many times when 28 MHz had ionospheric propagation around-the-clock and the band just never closed. Not only witnessed that, but took part in it and sometimes stayed up all night over a weekend because DX was so good and so strong it seemed a shame to miss any of it, not knowing when that might happen again.

I especially remember the weekend of November 17, 2001: It's a strong memory because that Saturday early morning I had just completed the installation of beams on my new tower at my new home. I soldered the connector on the end of the coax to the six meter (50 MHz) beam and plugged it into the station and first thing I heard come out of the speaker was a guy in Spain, just about breaking the speaker -- strong signal...and I'm in Los Angeles.

I tuned around a bit to hear almost all of Europe banging in, signals from everywhere. I actually thought I was listening to 20 meters or something and re-checked the rig a few times.

That night (11/17/01) the six meter band literally never closed. Propagation followed the sun, with eastern Europe and Scandanavia early, followed by western Europe and the north African islands, then Iceland and Greenland, then eastern Canada and New England, etc...until the evening hours when it was hundreds of JAs, followed by Hong Kong, Philippines, the south Pacific islands and VK/ZL...all night long until the earth rotated around so it was daybreak in eastern Europe again, and the cycle repeated.

I was a new novice ham in 1954 with a Heathkit AR-3 receiver. No RF amp stage. Ten meter AM stations would boom into that RX, especially in the morning hours. It was fascinating and sold me on the hobby for the rest of my life (now age 73). 73

I was a new ham stationed in Bavaria, Germany in 1956. The bands were like CB on Saturday nights!

At that time the sun spot cycle was at or near the highest in recorded history. I used a Globeking 400b transmitter, an SP-600 receiver and cubical quad antenna on 20m.

This was the AM days of course. In the evenings I would run phone patches to the states for the troops on post. Whenever a 500w or higher AM signal came on the frequency the receiver would go from normal background noise to total silence and the speaker would emit a single "ping." The S-meter would be laying against the maximum scale peg. It was unreal.

As for ten meters, it was common to work 5w AM mobile stations without a problem. I never stayed on 10m day and night but did this many times on 20m.

On 20m I would start picking up east coast stations and start to work phone patches. As the evening progressed into night the area of the states would move progressively west until I was able to work CA stations and run phone patches to that area. Then after midnight, the band would start to change back with the signals moving east until just before daylight Germany time, the 20m band would fade out to the states. The signal strength of the signals as the area moved back east was not as strong as they were when they moved from east to west.

There were times when 20m was as dead as a mackerel and it seemed nobody in the world was on but those times were infrequent.

Ever since I've always looked for another sun spot cycle like that but it has never happened. I was looking forward to the present cycle maximum because I figured at 78 it would be my last one. So much for that thought, but I still have fond memories of 1956.

Hello I was operating on 10m exclusively during cycle 21 and as I recollect around 12:00 pm noon time The Thais were thundering into Miami, FL "the Hard stuff" relatively. The beam heading was about 10 degrees for peak signal strength.

Yeah a really global opening around the clock for long periods of time sometime days and weeks continuously involving anybody anywhere.

- was tuning a 'rig with a dummy load & some guy called me, ..he couldn't believe that there was a dummy load , not a real antennae @ the end ..- 5000Km contact with no antennae - can't beat that one!.

spoke all over the world on 28Mhz - those were the days.- all the cycles since then, have not been anywhere as great as those days.- been told that the '70s were ever better - must have been really good times.

Since I like to work 160 and 40 meters, I pray to the Solar Gods for low sunspots.

I have been using a spin-off of that prayer strategy in that i am trying to do all the 10 and 12 meters I can right now and then will get an 80m and possibly 160 meter antenna up once the cycle starts to trough

I can't say I ever heard 10M open for 24 hours, but it was close. One morning, after coming home from a party, I tuned around 10M at 1 a.m. I could hear some weak signals so I swung the antenna around and determined the signals were coming over the South Pole (not long path). I worked 9M2, 9M6, VS6, and 8Q7 in a few minutes. It was pretty amazing. This from NJ.

I can't say I ever heard 10M open for 24 hours, but it was close. One morning, after coming home from a party, I tuned around 10M at 1 a.m. I could hear some weak signals so I swung the antenna around and determined the signals were coming over the South Pole (not long path). I worked 9M2, 9M6, VS6, and 8Q7 in a few minutes. It was pretty amazing. This from NJ.

I can't say I ever heard 10M open for 24 hours, but it was close. One morning, after coming home from a party, I tuned around 10M at 1 a.m. I could hear some weak signals so I swung the antenna around and determined the signals were coming over the South Pole (not long path). I worked 9M2, 9M6, VS6, and 8Q7 in a few minutes. It was pretty amazing. This from NJ.

I was licensed in the fall of 1992. I made Tech+ shortly there after and I remember working tons of 10 meter contacts during the spring and fall of 1993.

I don't remember it being "open" all night per se, but I can remember working KH6 and JA in the evenings following the sun, and then turning around and working all of the US southeast / southwest via e-skip in the late evenings. Followed by working EU from early morning to mid afternoon.

All of this with an FT101E, D-104, 100 watts, and an Antron 99 at 45 feet.

At the time I didn't know much about it, but I guess I was catching the tail end of the cycle peak.

I also remember working contests on 10 meters, mobile. I was using an HTX-100 into a 102" whip on my bumper. That would have been, what, 25 watts or so? And I remember RUNNING stations:-) Of course, I had a few favorite hilltops I would park on...

Gotta love 10 meters. Now days I spend more time working 6 and 2 weak signal modes, but 10 is always fun.

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